The traditional publishers don’t believe in PC or Space Sims. Venture Capitalists only want to back mobile or social gaming startups.

I say they’re wrong. I say that there is a large audience of PC gamers that want sophisticated games built for their platform. And inside this audience, a significant group of people that have always loved space games, and if given a quality one again will be happy to play it.

Ask not what your genre can do for you, but what you can do for your favorite genre.

Let’s put high-end PC gaming and Space Sims back on the map!

Star Citizen brings the visceral action of piloting interstellar craft through combat and exploration to a new generation of gamers at a level of fidelity never before seen. At its core Star Citizen is a destination, not a one-off story. It’s a complete universe where any number of adventures can take place, allowing players to decide their own game experience. Pick up jobs as a smuggler, pirate, merchant, bounty hunter, or enlist as a pilot, protecting the borders from outside threats.

I’ve always wanted to create one cohesive universe that encompasses everything that made Wing Commander and Privateer / Freelancer special. A huge sandbox with a complex and deep lore allowing players to explore or play in whatever capacity they wish.

He's going the crowd-founding route, although I think the understanding is he does have some private investors that have helped the project get this far.

It's best to view the site, but if you're in a hurry (or the site is overwhelmed by traffic as it is atm), here's what hidden behind all those pop-out buttons on the site. They're using Crytek's CryEngine 3 technology for this. This will be a crazy long post but figured it's worth spelling out the details :

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“My God, it’s full of stars…”- A huge universe to explore, trade and adventure in- Space is unending, endless and so are your opportunities. Strike out to make your fortune amongst the Stars or sign-up for a tour of duty in the UEE Fleet.- Constantly expanding and evolving universe- We’re committed to making Star Citizen a living, breathing universe that is its own entity. It will be a constantly shifting and evolving place for players to explore and affect. Micro updates rule! We’re not interested in having yearly updates. We will have a team of people adding content on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, not too dissimilar to what we’ve been striving to do on the RSI website. So we’ll always be adding data, stories and campaigns as well as reacting to the needs and actions of the players.================“Navy Wings are made of Gold”- Wing Commander style single player mode, playable OFFLINE if you want- Playable offline or online, co-op with friends, you sign up for a tour of duty with the UEE fleet, manning the front lines, protecting settlements from Vanduul warbands. Life during wartime- If you distinguish yourself in combat, you might be invited to join the legendary 42nd Squadron. Much like the French Foreign Legion of old, they can always be found in the toughest areas of operation and always snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, regardless of the odds. The conflict never ends- Upon completion of your tour you’ll re-enter the persistent Star Citizen universe with some credits in your pocket and Citizenship to help you make your way. But in the universe of Star Citizen when one conflict ends, another is just around the corner. You’ll have opportunity to spend more time with your squadron mates as additional Campaigns are released as part of the content update plan.=======================“We the people…” Actions of the players impact the universe and become part of its history and lore- The universe will change based on the players’ actions and adventures allowing them to become part of the history of the universe. As an example, players can scan for gravitational anomalies while out in space. If one is discovered and the player manages to successfully navigate this uncharted jump point, they’ll be able to sell their Nav- Computers recording of their jump flight path for a great profit to a space company for other users to download. But the real prize is getting the system or jump-point named after them! Allowing user generated content is a key design goal - Our modding tools will allow players to design new ships for both submission to the persistent RSI ship dealer network or to build custom ships and items for the self-hosted multiplayer mode.It’s about the gameplay and your interactions with others- We plan to put a lot of social ideas in the universe. Since the universe is dynamic, it will create some divisions and factions. For example, it’s a perfectly valid choice not to be a Citizen and operate outside the protection of Earth. We think there will be people that gravitate to crime or helping enforce the law or defending the galaxy from the alien raiders or just accumulating as much money as possible. We want to include all these social divisions so players will gravitate to one or the other much like the real world operates.================“It’s the Economy, Stupid” Fully dynamic economy driven by player actions -If too many people fly iron ore to the smelting plants of New Pittsburg, steel prices will drop. Buy low… sell high… you hope. The cost of society - In game trade landing and trade tariffs pay for law and order in the civilized systems. Want to make a bigger profit? Try the outer world – outside earth’s infrastructure and protection. The downside? No military or local police to protect you from an opportunistic pirate! Money isn’t everything- You could be a trader, a miner or an industrial magnate. Amass great wealth or just run enough missions to earn a comfortable living and upgrades for your ship.==============================“With a little help from my friends”Strong support for you and your friends to play together. Space is empty but you’re never really alone- If caught alone in an online ambush, send a distress broadcast to your friends and if they’re nearby they can jump in-system to save your bacon. In each combat instance player slots are reserved for your friends so you can rally forces to join you in combat!Bigger ships offer bigger multi-player action- On larger ships, friends can join you to man turrets, repair systems, or switch with you on the pilot’s chair. Think the Millennium Falcon with Han-Solo piloting and Luke on the turret.=======================“I feel the need… the need for speed!”Real Physics, but fun to fly! Full rigid body simulation of all spaceships- You wanted proper Newtonian mechanics. You got it! Spaceships adjust their trajectory and orientation just like the real thing. Intelligent Flight Control System (IFCS)- Like a modern day F-35, the ships have fly by wire systems which take the player’s inputs and then translate them into the commands for the ship’s engine and thrusters to articulate and deliver the required thrust to achieve the pilot’s request. Dynamic Ship Maneuverability- Ship’s performance is calculated dynamically based on various physical variables and the ability of your jet maneuvering to deliver thrust towards a requested vector. What does this mean? Infinite customization with component damage, mass or energy changes affecting maneuverability on the fly – allowing for endless combat strategies and results.Ship Components matter!- Because we are fully simulating the physics and flight dynamics, the actual components matter. If a port thruster is damaged, it will affect your maneuverability organically. If you upgrade your thruster package with enhanced thrusters that gimbal faster and deliver more thrust it will affect your performance. Dump cargo, you may be able to get the edge in turning in a dogfight.===============================“That’s no Moon, it’s a Space Station!” Range of scale never seen before in a game- From a vast 1km long carrier to a 27m fighter, to your 1.8M tall pilot, everything is rendered and to the same level of detail. Zoom in to the paneling of the carrier and its texel density is the same as the 27M fighter. All without a load screen or loss of visual fidelity.Really feel the scale of ships and space battles- Because of the ability of the game to scale seamlessly you could be looking out the windows on the bridge of a carrier watching the battle unfold or jump into a cockpit and take the fight to the enemy.=======================“Can you fly that thing?” Fly the way YOU want- Joystick, gamepad, mouse, keyboard are all supported.- We’ve all got our preferences, so why be forced to choose? Advanced peripheral support- As part of commitment to high end gaming we are dedicated to supporting the more exotic enthusiast peripherals; HOTAS, flight chair, rudder pedals. It’s all about the immersion and if you’ve got the equipment we want to support it! Virtual Reality is here! We have backed Oculus Rift and will support it in Star Citizen / Squadron 42. Who doesn’t want to sit in their cockpit, hands on your joystick and throttle, swivelling your head, to track that enemy fighter that just blew by?===============================The Technology Will Push Your PC To It’s Limits Next generation, TODAY- Built on top of Crytek’s award winning CryEngine3 technology, Star Citizen’s engine is built to scale for the PC’s of today and tomorrow. A PC gaming enthusiast’s friend! As you upgrade your PC, Star Citizen will take advantage of your extra processor cores, memory or GPUs. This is why you’re a PC gamer – you love being on the cutting edge, not stuck in the past!

*You can see images of the free ship you'll get if you pledge, depending on amount. You can pledge anywhere from $10 to $10,000. I'm all about dogfighting so the Wingnut amount pledge appeals to me. I think that's something like $125 or $135 U.S. (100 Euros).

Before the U.S. site got overwhelmed, I think it was up to $120,000 or so. They're targeting $2M-$4M as what they'll need, with private investors chipping in the balance. They're planning to offer refunds as an option if it doesn't reach the targeted amount in - I think - 30 days.

If you chip in a meager $10,000 , you get to name your ship. After yourself if you want. I think my generosity only rises to triple digits.

*I was reading through the FAQ. They do plan to offer a secure (as best as they can) mega-main server for people who want more of a persistent, MMO-style online-only experience, but they also plan to offer the ability for folks to set up their own private servers (a la Freelancer) for those that prefer that. Or, you just enjoy it as a single player offline game.

I think basically they're trying to be all things to all people. Which often doesn't work, but at least right now, it sounds awesome. You know, every question you can possibly have about "What about..." or "But can I...." or "Will you be able to..." gets answered with "Yes!" Let us pray they can deliver.

The site indicates those who chip in $30 or more (that seems to be the minimum "pledge" to get the finished game and a ship from the start) will get to play in the Alpha within about a year (presumably around Oct./Nov. 2013). I know, "Promises, promises." That's at least the claim. And certainly that seems contingent on reaching the $2M-$4M goal on this crowd funding stuff.

I kind of wished he'd used mouse/keys or a joystick or something in the demo videos just so we'd see how precise various methods were. He always seems to be using a PSX type controller.

I kind of wished he'd used mouse/keys or a joystick or something in the demo videos just so we'd see how precise various methods were. He always seems to be using a PSX type controller.

I don't think control support or input options is going to be an issue with this game as the website claims support for advanced HOTAS and standard controls. As well, in the video Roberts mentions support for rudder pedals, throttles, etc. Roberts games in the past tended to be good in that department too. My concern with it is the possibly steep hardware curve - from comments in the video I'm not convinced a quad core is going to run this game anywhere near its full fidelity. I pledged $30 for my son who always bleeding edge with gaming hardware, but I'm taking a wait & see for our other gaming rigs.

Roberts says the video in the trailer was captured using an Nvidia GeForce GTX 670, which, by the time Star Citizen arrives, will be a two-year-old videocard. I saw a very early version of Star Citizen running live on a Dell gaming laptop, and it looks absolutely astonishing -- particularly in the high-polygon ship models and lighting departments. This is what a high-end game built strictly for PC hardware in mind looks like.

As Roberts flew around the carrier in his fighter and surrounding asteroids, the detail of the machinery on both ships was striking -- numerous moving parts flexed as the fighter wings adjusted, a half-dozen individual thrusters swiveled and fired as he changed direction, and weapon pods popped out to bare its teeth.

Definitely a Wing Commander homage... and some Star Wars in there.

Roberts is, of course, keenly aware that he similarly wowed gamers in 1999 with an early demo of Freelancer's then-impressive technology, only to end up releasing it in 2004, when it looked good but not great. He's intending to have a playable version of Star Citizen in which supporters will be able to dogfight available a year from now, with the full thing following in 2014. He's targeting a 50-star system map at launch, with more to come.

Let’s be clear, just because there’s no publisher doesn’t mean there’s no middle man. We’ve just become the middle men ourselves, except with little to no power over the game, and Roberts will still be responsible to the people putting up the other $10+ million. This isn’t a strike against “the man,” this is the last-ditch effort for a developer with big ambitions to get the money he needs to create his dream game, and many of the features listed feel like exactly that: Dreams.

There is nothing to lose when it comes to promising things at this stage. The more people like a certain feature or idea the more people will give money. During production it’s likely that many of these features will be dropped, or pushed way back into an expansion or update. This is a single-player game mixed with an MMO mixed with a player-driven economy, all wrapped around space ships with complex physics and amazing graphics that will be sold as product and then given free-to-play-style mechanics. It could be the most complex project possible in gaming, and Roberts only has experience with a few aspects of the design. This is a risky, expensive, and deliriously optimistic project.

On the optimists' side, I'd say:-This isn't some schmuck w/ no experience who threw something up on Kickstarter and said "send me money." You can certainly argue that Roberts has always promised Too Much and often either taken too long and/or not quite delivered. But it's not like he's somebody who has no idea how long or how much money/manpower it takes to make an ambitious game.

-Unlike many crowd-funded games, he's not trying to create a game engine from scratch. I guess it's arguable whether Crytek's technology was really designed for space combat, but he's licensed it and is developing with it now. So it's not like, say, Flagship desperately coding an engine from scratch for Hellgate: London.

-Maybe it's naive, but wouldn't you like, say, Larry Holland to come back out of hiding and say "Give us a bunch of money and I'll make you that space combat or WWII air combat or Stark Trek Bridge Commander-type game you're dying to play on your 2012-era system?" Maybe Tony Zurovec (Crusader: No Remorse). Or really any 1990s PC-game dev that you really miss.

I'd really like this to even partially work because maybe we'd see some of those old favorites return to the industry w/o being beholden to narrow-visioned giant publishers. I realize some oldies-but-goodies are already doing that sort of thing on Kickstarter.

I totally understand some jaundiced cynicism, esp. given that Roberts has always promised the sky. I just don't think $30 is gonna break anyone's bank and it seems like a small price to pay to try to help this become reality. Then again, maybe it's been so long since we heard anybody in the industry talk so lovingly about PC-gaming that we're all starstruck?

I agree with some comments elsewhere that resolving the issue of multiplayer space combat stuff in terms of varying connection quality, etc., might be the biggest issue on that side. So imho, I'd feel more confident Roberts & Co. can pull off the single player campaign stuff. I would like to think his experience on Freelancer would at least give him some insights into multiplayer space combat issues/concerns.

This sounds like one of those amateur efforts I always see when I was going college game development. Jumping straight into an MMO.

So we have someone who has made a bunch of older games from a different era, and a bunch of bad movies, and some more recent mediocre games. Now he wants to make an MMO, something that, by now, we all know is a huge undertaking.

I'd be more confident if he said all this money was going straight towards an initial single player and co-op/multiplayer version that he described, then the MMO stuff being added in a sequel.

I sent over my $30. If this game is half as good as he says it is, it'll be awesome. I've been dying to play a half decent Space Sim and this will definitely scratch that itch. Plus, it's not like he started this whole thing with a few pieces of concept are and said "WE WANT TO DO THIS GIVE US MONEY." He's actually got a playable build that, while not including everything he wants to do, is a decent enough vertical slice to show off to press and public to get them excited. I'm glad to see Chris Roberts back in the game. It's been too long.

And for what it's worth, I really enjoyed Freelancer. It's a shame that game didn't get the love it should have.

I was initially excited about a new space based game from Chris but once I found out it was going to be an MMO I have pretty much lost all interest in it.

I know it's supposed to have a single player mode but I'll wait for reviews on that before even considering this game.

According to the Kickstarter page, it's not an MMO.

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Is Star Citizen an MMO?

No! Star Citizen will take the best of all possible worlds, ranging from a permanent, persistent world similar to those found in MMOs to an offline, single player campaign like those found in the Wing Commander series. The game will include the option for private servers, like Freelancer, and will offer plenty of opportunities for players who are interested in modding the content. Unlike many games, none of these aspects is an afterthought: they all combine to form the core of the Star Citizen experience.

There will be a 24 hour livestream starting at noon tomorrow to go along with a brand new website being launched. This campaign continues to blow me away, and has easily become my most expensive kickstarter/crowd funding campaign.

If you haven't seen it, they released a commercial for the Origin Jumpworks 300i. Of note about the commercial:

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We would like to clarify one further thing about the commercial: the video you saw wasn’t just made in-engine, it used actual game models. You’re looking at the 300i mesh you will see in Star Citizen and not some high-poly fake created for cutscenes and good PR. What you’re seeing is what you’ll play.

Who said no mining? Pretty sure mining was mentioned in the 24 hr livestream they just finished up.

For those who haven't pledged, you get a reprieve. Until I think it's Nov 26th, you still have opportunity to sign up for ships with lifetime insurance on them, and/or packages that allow you access to alpha/beta testing, if that is your desire.

I'm in for 30 so far from the Aurora sale... or was it 35? can't remember.